The processing of silver halide color photographic materials basically comprises the two steps of (a) color development (with a preceding initial black-and-white development in the case of color reversal materials) and (b) desilvering, in which the desilvering comprises a bleaching step and a fixing step or a combined bleach-fixing step used in conjunction with these or independently. In addition to the above steps, additional processing steps, which is to say washing, stop processing, stabilization processing and preceding processing for development acceleration, are applied, if desired.
In color development, as the exposed silver halides are reduced to silver, the primary aromatic amine developing agent which is oxidized reacts with couplers to form dyes. In this process, the halogen ions which are produced by the decomposition of the silver halides are eluted and built up in the developing solution. On the other hand, the color developing agent is exhausted by the reaction with the couplers mentioned above. Furthermore, other components are taken out by being held in the photographic material and the concentration of the components in the developing solution is reduced. Therefore, in development processing methods continuously processing large amounts of silver halide photographic materials using an automatic developing machine or the like, a means for maintaining the components of the color developing solution in a fixed concentration range in order to avoid variation in the finished development characteristics caused by changes in the concentration of components is required.
When there is little influence from concentration, the concentration of exhausted components such as developing agents and preservatives is generally raised in the replenisher. Furthermore, with eluents having a development inhibiting effect such as halogens, there will be cases in which their concentration will be lowered or in which they are not included in the replenisher. Again, it is also possible that certain compounds may be included in the replenisher in order to remove the influence of the eluents. Furthermore, there are also cases in which the pH and the concentration of alkalis or chelating agents and the like are adjusted. The method in which replenishers are supplied to replenish insufficient components and to dilute increased components is commonly adopted as such a means. The supply of these replenishers inevitably generates a large amount of overflow which constitutes a major problem of economics and of pollution.
In recent years, a reduction in replenishment amounts for color developing solutions has become highly desirable from the standpoint of rapid development processing as well as saving on raw materials and reducing pollution. However, if the replenishment amounts of the color developing solution are merely reduced, problems of reduction in development activity and loss of rapidity occur due to elution from the photosensitive materials and the accumulation of various organic compounds and bromine ions which are particularly strong developing inhibitors. A developing acceleration technique is necessary as a means for resolving these problems and many accelerating techniques have been investigated to reduce the replenishment amounts of the developing solution.
For example, the accelerating means in which development is accelerated by raising the pH and the processing temperature of the color developing solution is known. With this method, however, there are problems in that it is still insufficient for obtaining a sufficient color density and in that the fog is generated during processing. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in magenta color image-forming layers with high light absorbency, and is a major problem. On the other hand, methods in which developing acceleration is effected using couplers having high color-forming ability can also be envisaged. Use of highly active magenta couplers as described in JP-A-60-057839 (the term "JP-A" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application") and U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,897 is known, but while it may be said that the color-forming ability is improved, these are insufficient and satisfactory results cannot be obtained. Also, use of more highly active magenta couplers as described in WO 88/04795 is known.
The magenta couplers as described in WO 88/04795 are highly active and sufficient color densities are obtained, but it is known that a degree of fogging is high and satisfactory photographic properties are not obtained if they are developed in high temperature, high pH color developing solutions. In this respect, a technique with which fogging is inhibited and with which sufficient color densities are obtained is strongly to be desired.